Silent Films / Live Guitars

“Marc Ribot did such a fabulous job with Chaplin's classic The Kid at the 2010 Festival,” NYGF Founder David Spelman remembers, “bringing out not just the humor, but the deep humanity of the film, that I knew we wanted to have him back, but this time with a film that might summon up an even wider emotional palette.” This season, Ribot returns with a new score for von Sternberg’s passionate drama The Docks of New York, which tells the New York waterfront story of a boiler room stoker’s romance with a suicidal dance-hall girl. Ribot has frequently collaborated with Tom Waits and John Zorn; his most recent band is the trio Ceramic Dog.

For sheer contrast, bathing beauties and Keystone Kops abound in Fatty Arbuckle’s 1917 short comedy Coney Island, screened with a suitably raucous new score by Chris Eldridge of the progressive bluegrass band Punch Brothers.